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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Design I Love This Man

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 1:25 PM

Aaron Draplin's story goes from a drunken eBay purchase to being personally outraged by bad design.

You can find more information about Draplin here. This is apparently part of a documentary that Jess Gibson is making about Draplin and the sad state of American design.

(Via The Rumpus.)

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Comments (7) RSS

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He has a very good point about that new sign. That is UG-LY. And Jesus, charging $15,000 to design something a graphic design student would be embarrassed of? Awful.

Maybe the last week of playing Fallout New Vegas has colored my opinion a bit (what with all its 50s-inspired design aspects), but I agree with him that the original sign is worlds better than the flat orange monstrosity that will replace it.

Posted by Knat on October 27, 2010 at 1:50 PM

Man I love watching people care about shit.

Posted by DeaconBlues

on October 27, 2010 at 1:59 PM

Aaron Draplin is a righteous dude. Not to be fucked with. Ever.

Posted by SPG on October 27, 2010 at 2:10 PM

While I agree with Jess Draplin that America is fucked (design and/or otherwise) it's all about historical context. Sixty years on we look back lovingly at googie signage, plastic key chains, hand drawn type, and mid century design. I am sure that at the time most of it was looked at with derision as derivitive, copycat garbage. The entrepreneurs that built the motel, and bought the signage were all to happy to ride the wave of popular trends of the time, not for any high minded design ethic, but simply because it was the accepted design motif for motel design and American road culture. For all of Jess' passion about design integrity, the Russian family that bought the motel are doing the exact same thing. They couldn't give a shit about design, typefaces, and preserving American roadside culture. That sign is old fashioned. Tearing it down and replacing it with that orange horror is merely putting their stamp on the American dream. Unfortunately, sixty years hence someone will be passionate about Blippo, gradients, and those elegantly, spare bird drawings.

Other than that I totally agree with the sentiment. We are fucked.

Posted by Drawmark